The purpose of art is to wash away the dust of life that is attached to our souls
— Pablo Picasso
It's Catrin Welz-Stein's favorite quote and the woman artist who is still a finalist for the iCanvas Digital Art Prize at the age of 50. If you still have a young, fanciful heart and are hovering on the edge of the dimensions of reality and the space of your mind, you should not hesitate to enter the door she has opened for you, for on the other side of the door is a beautiful new world that has been lost for a long time.
Sleeping beauty
The sandman
Collage of "oil paintings"
The layers of oil paints, the distinctive imprints of the brushes, and the deliberately created traces of craftsmanship and antiquity give Catlin's digital collages a hand-drawn texture that is difficult to distinguish between true and false, so that many viewers who are new to these paintings will mistakenly think that these paintings are oil paintings.
Portrait 11 with hat
Portrait 15
New beginnings
However, what we are seeing is indeed a digital work of art processed by graphics processing software. A typical, Cartlin-style digital collage usually starts with a digital sketch. When the sketch is complete, Catlin prints it out and draws the first draft using acrylic and other mixed media. The first draft is often limited to the background of the work and the large-scale coloring process, and the most critical collage process needs to be done with Photoshop.
Magnolia
Portrait 19
Chiyoko
To make these digital works look more like a painting, Catlin spends most of her time collecting images, illustrations, photographs, and other materials that are not disputed by copyright, so old books, magazines, and the Internet become her indispensable repositories. When she finds a suitable image, Catlin will break it into pieces and use software to transform, retouch, and reassemble until the original image is unrecognizable and "detached" into a completely new appearance in her field of vision.
Portrait in pastel 1
Portrait in pastel 2
Equality
Step back to the world of elves flying
The application of image mixing technology not only greatly improves Catlin's creative efficiency, but also makes her creativity have a wider space to develop. Fantasies derived from women, medieval folk art, surrealism and romantic plots in fairy tales became content that she could freely control. In a digital realm with no boundaries, material is often not a bottleneck that hinders creation, and if you want to touch the emotions of the viewer, imagination and execution that turns imagination into visual perception is the key to success.
In the poppyfield
Nine of cups
Sakamotosan
And Catlin, an advertising designer, in her career of more than 20 years, the constant compromises made in response to the needs of customers made her feel powerless to create, and she was unable to fully express herself and show her full creative enthusiasm in her work. So, in 2009, after becoming a mother, Catlin decided to quit her job as an advertising designer and devote herself to her digital art, at the age of 37.
Morningdew girl
Wake me in spring
Greensleeves
Treat yourself
I graduated in graphic design from the Technical University of Darmstadt in Germany, worked for several advertising agencies in Germany, the United States and Switzerland, and my skills were developed in the long years before the computer. But when I became a stay-at-home mother, sending my kids to school, cooking, and housework took up almost all of my time. I needed a way to compensate for my artistic dreams, so every night after the children fell asleep was my own creative time. Whenever this moment comes, I can regain my childhood, enjoy the fantasy again, and enter a world of elves flying again.
—Catrin Welz-Stein
Butterflies
The passage
She knew she could fly
A long way home
Fifty years, a gift
Born in Weinheim, Germany, in 1972, Catlin grew up drawing and creating with a pencil. Almost then, little Catlin understood the value of enjoying the joy of creation and thinking positively.
Down Under
Hear me calling
Cocoon 2
Borderless
Today, Catlin lives with his family in Malaysia. In her spare time, she still watches magical films such as The Chronicles of Narnia and The Lord of the Rings, and still enjoys reading medieval and Victorian historical novels. Through the Internet and social media, more and more people began to pay attention to Catlin's creations, and her work appeared more intensively on calendars, greeting cards, book covers, and tarot cards. In 2021, she was shortlisted for the iCanvas Digital Art Award for her work Morning Flight, showcasing her digital collage art in front of a global audience.
Morning Flight
Late Night Talk
Baptizing the dust of life with artistic creation – as she loved Picasso's famous quote, Catlin is also using her inexhaustible imagination to create her ideal world and balance her ideal life as a mother and an artist.
Snowball
Teatime
The kiss
Catrin Welz-Stein
In my art, I blur the boundaries between imagination and reality while exploring the female mental space in many different ways. The feeling of retro, ethereal, unknown, and fantasy is the inspiration that life gives me, and it is also my gift to give back to life.
—Catrin Welz-Stein
Eye Art Chronicles Part 910 is an artistic gift dedicated to life.
Text Writing: Eye Edge Art Zhi
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